No Cure Like Travel (Part 3 of 3)

Good morning, art lovers! These are the last of my photos of my trip to Japan and Singapore. In particular, these are the photos from Singapore. Hence, the entry under the cut is likely to be photo-heavy.

But before you click on it, did anyone see the episode of House this week? I was impressed – I think that’s the first one I still would have enjoyed if House, Wilson, and Cuddy hadn’t made a single appearance, even though I could sort of figure out the ending before the “reveal”. Maybe I’m more easily intrigued by philosophical dilemmas in fiction when they’re not related to philosophy of science/rationality/etc.? Unfortunately, James Earl Jones is forever associated with Mufasa in my brain, so half of me was waiting for, “You see, Dr. Chase, when we die, our bodies become the grass…”. Anyway.

From the Lonely Planet Travel Guide’s description, I expected my arrival in Singapore to be immediately followed by an hourlong bout of questioning and searches in Customs, possibly followed by some sort of standardized intelligence test and/or a fitness exam. But, luckily, it mainly involved flashing my passport and going through the correct nothing-to-declare door. Oh, Lonely Planet, you and your misleading ways.

My friend Grace met me at the airport, even though it was about midnight, and, as you can tell, she and her family were way more excited to host me than is warranted.

The exercise ball is part of Grace’s sneaky attempts to avoid having photos taken of her at any time because she “looks bad”. I pointed out that, yes, photos of one thrusting one’s hand in front of the camera lens or trying to duck away do tend to look worse than photos in which one smiles and poses, but this worked only for a couple days.

Luckily, my other generous hostess, Mag, understood this, so this picture from my first day when she took me to the Singapore Philatelic Museum is great.

Mag and I also went to the Peranakan Museum, where they had a special exhibit on Peranakan “bling” (I swear that’s what the museum decided to call it!), and we took a short hike on a raised walkway that goes through a bit of forest. Mag pointed out that it looks like Jurassic Park, which it does, and after that, every zoo that I visited made me think of dinosaurs.

There were animals on the walkway, but luckily none of them were dinosaurs:

Unless they were very cleverly disguised. The monkeys in the picture turned out to be a couple parent monkeys with an adorable little baby monkey. Someone had dropped a package of biscuits on the walkway, and a guy came by and started feeding them to the monkeys.

Speaking of feeding a monkey, one thing both Grace and Mag insisted on was getting me to try lots of local foods. This is because the majority of Singaporeans speak as their first language not English but Delicious. Because Singapore is a nation of immigrants, there are literally hundreds of different dishes from several traditional cuisines to try. And all of them are awesome.

Some of the time, we ate at food courts at malls and other public places, which were so jam-packed with a variety of Chinese, Indian, and Malay stalls that I probably could have eaten at just one of them for the entire time I was there and never got bored.

And believe me, though it seems like there are a lot of pictures of me with food or drink, they don’t even scratch the surface of what we ate. I tried laksa, a Peranakan spicy noodle dish made with coconut milk and seafood.

And of course, an overpriced Singapore Sling.

And the Singaporean dessert known as ice kacang.

And lots of other things, including a million and one mouth-watering types of Indian food at the hawker centre in Little India (and three or four cups of sugar-cane juice… don’t ask); a number of equally mouth-watering traditional and Singaporean Chinese dishes; dim sum; various snacks like pineapple tarts, prawn rolls, and Singaporean ice cream sandwiches (a slab of ice cream between two slices of multi-coloured bread); and plenty of satay. Even on the night before I left at four in the morning, Grace and her parents were still convincing me to try moon cakes:

Mag and Grace were also kind enough to help me avoid eating most things with pork in them – I think Mag’s face upon realizing I’d accidentally eaten a slice of Chinese sausage traditionally put in chicken dim sum was far more horrified than my own when she told me. Grace took me on a search for vegetarian popiah, a spring roll-type dish.

Mag and Grace showed me all around Singapore, including Little India:

… the Singapore Zoo (Zoboomafoo, what are you doing here?)

And the Singapore Night Safari, of which I didn’t take any pictures because it’s a collection of nocturnal animals open only from sunset to about midnight, and nocturnal animals don’t like flash. Apparently, though, lots of tourists like to ignore zookeepers’ warnings about that – Grace and I saw some idiot actually shining a flashlight into one of the enclosures because he couldn’t find the animal inside.

Mag and I explored Singapore’s vast network of shopping malls, and Grace and I went on the Duck Tours tour of Singapore by land and water.

And saw a show at the Esplanade, which you can see over Grace’s shoulder in this picture.

We also visited Underwater World on Sentosa. There are about fifty pictures of me touching sharks, rays, starfish, and other fish in the hands-on pool, because I unwisely handed Grace my camera so as not to get it wet. Here’s one of them.

And this would be a good picture if it weren’t so blurry. We’re on the Travellator, an automated walkway that takes you through a giant tunnel of tanks filled with huge groupers, sharks, and even a manatee.

Finally, Mag and I visited Jurong Bird Park, which had dozens of awesome exhibits.

The ostriches and emus were lots healthier than the ones at the zoo, and they kept making drumming noises.

But I think my favourite exhibit was the huge lorry cage. Like at the Metro Toronto Zoo, you could buy a cup of fruit nectar to feed the birds; unlike at the Metro Toronto Zoo, the cup was huge, and you immediately got swarmed.

Mag wasn’t pleased when one landed on her head (score one for wearing hats), but it hasn’t happened yet in this picture. The lorries’ little claws were pretty sharp, and they scratched an awful lot when they were jockeying for prime nectar-sipping position.

Last but not least, we learned that Mag is much better at convincing me to buy things than Grace is. I, however, was successful in convincing Grace that she wanted to buy the roll-up electronic piano we found at Toys’r’us.

Thanks again, Grace and Mag, for being such wonderful hostesses! And next week, I promise: no more photos!